Lean Manufacturing Optimizes Everything

Plant intelligence and analytics Plants are moving from the analog world to the digitized realm. That results in emerging lean practices that are tied to plant intelligence. “Lean can be about transforming raw data into actionable opportunities. The reasons for waste and downtime come down to not having the right information,” Mark Bernardo, general manager of automation software at GE Intelligent Platforms, told Design News. “The information is out there. Step one is to take all of the data from SCADA, MES, and historians and connect it so it’s meaningful.”

Bernardo said the data has to be routed to someone who acts on it to make the operation more efficient. “If I’m a service guy doing maintenance, I care about how we can get the data and make sure it goes to the right person,” he told us. As an example, the data can indicate that a valve or motor is about to fail. If you can catch the problem and solve it before the valve or pump fails, you have a more efficient plant.

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Another form of plant intelligence is knowledge of how the plant sounds and feels when it’s operating at prime efficiency. For decades, plant engineers were able to walk the plant and listen -- and smell -- anything that indicated potential or existing malfunctions. Those knowledgeable engineers tend to be Baby Boomers and they’re retiring. So their knowledge has to be passed on to Generation X and the Millennials. The difference between generations is what they trust. Boomers trust the sense of sound and smell. Generation X and Millennials trust data.

The problems in plant operation can now be mapped by digital sensors and reported in HMI platforms that can display all aspects of plant operations. The restraints of the plant can be programmed and anything out of order becomes an alarm. The Boomers' knowledge is thus captured in digital form. For the young engineers coming into plants, there is already a preference for digital systems. “The digitized plant serves up the data in a way that is meaningful to the young engineers,” said Bernardo. “The final leg of this is to let the engineer pose questions to the system and get rationalized answers back based on analytics.”

Bernardo said analytics can tell the user that the pressure in a particular pump has changed 10 percent in the last week and it’s not going down. The Boomer engineer would have depended on hearing and smelling the effects of that pressure. The young engineer relies on the data. “The next generation of manufacturing experience will be very different,” said Bernardo. “This is how the Millennials expect to interact with data. They want it to mimic their home data behavior, since that’s pretty efficient.” Relying on data is not just a replacement of relying on the senses, it’s an improvement. There are some imminent failures that can be detected by data but can’t be detected by the sense.

Whacking away at waste While new technology has created a paradigm shift in how plants are operated, some advances in lean manufacturing come the old-fashioned way, by improving the workstation. “Lean manufacturing involves the identification and elimination of waste,” Bill Arnold, manager of manufacturing engineering and productivity at Stanley Vidmar, told Design News. “There are many waste forms that contribute to factory overhead and the result is overhead being the largest contributor to cost.”

Rob, this is a really good comprehensive look at how things are changing in manufacturing on many levels as part of a real evolution happening at the moment. It's good to see more leaner processes and technologies coming into play, especially to reduce waste. So things are not only leaner but also greener, which is a very good thing!

We're going lean at our company. Greener it isn't, more a case of "how come nobody thought of that before...?". However, we are a small private comapny so we can do this. Let's see any of you get the "efficiency" word past the unions without trouble.

Well it's good to hear your company is going leaner, Battar. I suppose it isn't always greener, but I think if you look at the big picture, any cutback on waste is probably good for the environment somehow. As you point out, it might be tougher for some unionized companies to drive efficiency, let alone be more green! But lean is a good start.

OK, Elizabeth, I didn't spell it out in my comment, but the unavoidable truth about lean manufacturing is that I can produce the same output either in less time or with less hands (usually the former). It doesn't mean that I can significantly increase my customer base - my competitors are doing the same, so the playing field evens out. It does mean that we have less employment to offer our workhands, and eventually it means some of them looking for a new job. So it's not all sweetness and light. Of course, it does shave a few bucks off the cost of the product.

Well thank you for that real-world perspective, Battar. There are always two sides to every story and while it's certainly a good thing to try to improve efficiency and reduce cost if possible, it's interesting to know the true effect of such efforts, and how it changes or affects how things already are done.

Well put Battar. However, it seems the public has voted to raise the minimum wage irregardless of the impact on the cost of doing business. So once again the "Kiazan" events will start "to reduce waste". However, this time I think it will actually mean a few of the lowered skilled people will go.

My philosophy is to expand my skill base so I am never veiwed as waste!

My one run-in with lean manufacturing and the culture that it begets was a few years back, at the Nissan plant in Arkansas. I shipped some machine parts there in preparation for installation on a machine I would be working on in another day. MY shipping instructions included a request to deliver the package of custome cables to the post coordinates of the machine that I would be working on, so that I would not need to get them from the shipping department area.

When I arrived the next day and attempted to locate the cable assemblies I found out that they had already been scrapped because they were not needed at that moment, or in the next few hours. which was a big waste of time and very expensive connectors.

I am still not impressed by that aspect of japanese lean manufacturing. It comes across as a stupid obsession with neatness and a refusal to think.

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